I found a few video's on the internet for ASMR and thought it was interesting so I did a little research on it. Curious if anyone else has heard of this or has experienced it?

From reading the description of what it feels like, I have experienced it a number of times, for me the trigger isn't anything so easy though. I have to become completely absorbed in listening to music for it to happen.

The feeling is something like meditative bliss, it starts in the back center of the head and goes down the spine like a shiver, if it's very intense it can cause you to lose body awareness. Very strange stuff.

I'm also curious if anyone who is familiar with the body energy system can pinpoint what this experience is?

“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one's desires, but by the removal of desire” – Epictetus

It sounds like something I experience while getting haircuts. Its a soothing feeling, one of being nurtured and taken care of. Because of this I am inclined to theorize that its related to very early childhood when one goes into a quiescent state as a result of the attention of ones mother. The reason I say this is because the only people to ever touch my hair would be my mother as a very young boy, hair stylists, or lovers. When my lovers play with my hair/head its the same sensation. Anyone else touching that region would cause me more anxiety than comfort though.

I think it basically causes one to go into a deep state of relaxation which mirrors the comfort and relaxation one felt as a young child. Thus its very trigger specific and different for everyone based on the conditioning that happened during the first few times that one experienced this relaxation.

This is all just a theory though, based on reading the article and like 90 seconds of thought, so who knows?

Edit: I should also mention that I have a lot of experience with energy work and have experienced tons of varieties of energetic/meditative bliss, and this particular kind of bliss of ASMR is definitely unique not only in how it comes about, but how pervasive and strong it is for something that doesnt require anything extraordinary to produce.

I assume the explication is simple, no need to go into "body meridian energy system".

Shortly, my belief is that if you create any sort pleasant relaxed feeling and apply non-disrupting sensory overload, the feeling will be enhanced, potentially become blissful.

This is what I see happening:

1. Sensory overload - you can achieve this many ways, but they do it with the Hi-tech 3D microphone. You can find a lot of binaural psychedelic meditation music on youtube.

Same person face to face would have less effect. Also, the whispering is known to enhance attention and focus.

Other ways can be the trance dancing (tribal, whirling dervish, etc.), maybe culinary experiences can be triggers, if you practice mindfulness.

You can get similar experience if somebody else uses on you a cheap "scalp massager" device. Obviously, for the "bliss" to consolidate, you need to go in more deeply, for more minutes. Body massage or reflexology is known to produce bliss.

2. Synesthesia

They overlap hearing and touching, they produce sounds which give you tactile feelings.

3. I'm not sure about the content ... as in how much it matters if they do nails, towels, hair. Probably a familiar pleasant object will create a "cuddly feeling" and stimulate releasing oxytocin hormone.

The towels/whispering/paper crinkling also play the role of white nose, which sometimes used during meditation. Here, the effect is enhanced by the binaural effect.

I don't know what the OP means by trigger.

My personal experience is all the trigger I need is few seconds of the sound, but I "recognize" the feeling and that gives me the option to "move towards it". So that may give me an advantage.

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This guy is also doing it, worth checking : MassageASMR on youtube

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And this is the Buddhist version, you can jump to minute 11, Teddy bear meditation (just few minutes).

It may not be obvious, but there are many similarities, he's simply doing this by instinct and of course he's not using the same microphone technology.

Jesse wrote:I'm also curious if anyone who is familiar with the body energy system can pinpoint what this experience is?

It's not sensory overload. The binaural microphone is necessary to create a feeling of close-by. It's a sensation that is released when you fully give in to closely being taken care of, or mindful action that happens very close to you. The "triggers" are like small tickles of your relaxed state, but decent enough to let you slip back into relaxation. Yes, can also happen at the hairdresser. Many people experienced that watching the TV painings of Bob Ross, it was one of the major youth trends on the net during the last decade. I've seen people "evolve" doing those videos to a point where new noses were being made to look better on the videos. I guess a couple of people can make a living of it today. Of course, it can also happen if you give in to the gurudev within you or specific memories. There hasn't necessarily to be an external trigger for that bliss.

Well. ASMR does work without binaural microphones. So what you're experiencing there is probably something else, even if it's reinforcing the effect for you.
Binarual in this case really does only mean that the stereo position of the speaker is clearly identifiable. The stereo microphones are setup in opposite directions and with the distance of human ears, and if used with headphones (because of the placement of the mics in artificial earlobes or a dummy head) have the same frequencies extinguished as a natural ear does. This simply enhances directional perception of sound, and is nothing hypnotic at all. There are a ton of binaural videos that simply have an enhanced stereoscopic effect than regular stereos. This is an effect that enhances the "close by" experience, as it is unrealistic when recorded with regularly placed stereo mics with non-natural frequency extinction. Please read up on "binaural recording". Also, better video resolution (hd) enhances this close-by effect.

That has nothing to do with binaural beats or other phenomena out there that are commonly called "binaural" and are used to induce trances.

Stimuli aren't inherently hypnotic, but they can be under certain circumstances.

Some ways to achieve a hypnotic effect are:

1. Focusing on a single stimulus

2. Inducing more stimuli at once, where the mind cannot effectively focus on them all. This is what I above called "sensory overload", and this is how I experience the "surround effect" noticed in some of the ASMR videos I've watched. And the "tingling" feeling only adds to that.

Jesse wrote:This isn't really like bineural beats, it's a very distinct feeling one gets that induced a bliss like state. If you can imagine the shivers you get from music its very similar, but much more intense.

It's distinct also in that it doesn't necessarily cause a significant change in consciousness. Besides relaxation of course.

Jesse wrote:This isn't really like bineural beats, it's a very distinct feeling one gets that induced a bliss like state. If you can imagine the shivers you get from music its very similar, but much more intense.

It's distinct also in that it doesn't necessarily cause a significant change in consciousness. Besides relaxation of course.

Is there a specific way to cause this to happen?

Your either susceptible to it or not. Look-up ASMR videos on youtube. The videos are dedicated to that purpose pretty much. Triggers usually include tapping, whispering, scraping,e etc

“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one's desires, but by the removal of desire” – Epictetus

SeeLion wrote:
2. Inducing more stimuli at once, where the mind cannot effectively focus on them all. This is what I above called "sensory overload",

Well. In that case most ASMR-video makers do it wrong. They're particularly slow paced to only present you one stimulus at one time to avoid sensory overload. This is what many people find relaxing, as it stops their thoughts by drawing your attention to the close-by experience, much like meditation does. The binaural recordings are aimed at enhancing that effect. So this bliss and bliss from presence meditation do have common elements, but are produced in different ways.